Economy to recover in 2021, but output may take another year to regain loss

While inflation is likely to moderate, fiscal deficit is clearly the pain point

There is broad consensus among experts that the economy will revert to marginal growth in the first quarter of the coming calendar year 2021, though opinions are varied on whether the economy will continue to contract or expand to a small extent in the fourth quarter of Calendar 2020.

That the economy is on a recovery path was substantiated by a better-than-expected performance in the third quarter of Calendar 2020 (second quarter of FY21). The economy shrank by 7.5 per cent in that three-month period while many predicted a fall of at least nine per cent. The second quarter of